


Cutthroat

by FelidArachnid



Category: One Piece
Genre: Bathing/Washing, F/M, Facial Shaving, Sexual Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:22:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,546
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24578986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FelidArachnid/pseuds/FelidArachnid
Summary: Robin assists Zoro in the bathroom.
Relationships: Nico Robin/Roronoa Zoro
Comments: 6
Kudos: 139





	Cutthroat

**Author's Note:**

> Ok I drew some ZoRobin fanart on tumblr inspired by that scene in James Bond where Moneypenny shaves Bond and i like.........can't get it out of my head so...........here......   
> also i forgot completely what the bathroom situation on board the Sunny was so like.....dont come for me

Zoro stared at himself in the mirror, eyebrows furrowed over his one open eye, and ran his good hand over his roughened chin. A week bedridden against his will had severely soured his temper and had also left him with an unwelcome sheen of stubble. His still-injured left arm, swathed in bandages, hung stiff and awkward at his side. He wasn’t fully sure what he’d done to it – Zoro tended to tune out Chopper’s medical advice – but he was severely unimpressed to find that it was still painful and uncompromising to use despite the time he’d spent strapped to a hospital bed.

He sighed and plunged his right hand into the sink, covering it with suds and then applying the soap liberally to his face. It felt awkward and clumsy even doing this one-handed, and it was with a grumpy resignation that he raised the small shaving blade to his jaw and began painstakingly scraping it clean. As he did so, he reflected crossly on how frustrating the next few days were going to be, doing everything one handed and being kept from his swords until he could at least maintain a grip in the left hand once more.

He lowered the blade; tapped it into the water. “Fuck’s sake.” Raised it once more to continue along the plane of his cheek. “Shit!”

It was only a slip, only a second, but a single drop of blood slipped from his jawline and landed in the soap-filled sink, blooming and vanishing into the water. Cursing himself, Zoro fumbled and the blade followed suit, slipping under the surface with a clatter against the porcelain. Flustered, he splashed a hand into the water before hastily withdrawing it, reminding himself that he of all people should know not to grab blindly for a blade. Involuntarily he glanced back up into the mirror and saw the streak of crimson threading the line of his jawbone, the tiniest of cuts traced into his skin. He swore once more; couldn’t remember the last time he’d cut himself. It was unthinkable as a swordsman – and he’d managed it shaving, like some idiot preteen boy.

Exactly as this thought entered his mind, the door behind him creaked and he found himself staring at Nico Robin’s reflection in the mirror. 

She stood framed against the candlelight, long dark hair swept back from her face and a towel over one hand. He turned to face her, forgetting and then immediately remembering that he himself wore only a towel wrapped around his waist. 

She didn’t comment on this, however. “You’re bleeding,” was all she said. 

Without taking his eyes from her face he raised his hand and swept at the warmth spreading down his cheek. Felt the blood almost immediately well up from the cut again. “Yeah.”

This time her gaze dropped downwards slightly and for a wild moment he wondered what she was thinking – before realising she was looking at his heavily bandaged left arm. “How is it?”

By way of answer, he flexed it very slightly at the elbow and winced in pain. 

She made a sympathetic clicking sound with her tongue but did not smile. “You’re still bleeding.” Before he had a chance to clumsily wipe himself clean once more, she stepped forward and pressed her towel to his cheek, applying a gentle but firm pressure. Reflexively, he briefly closed his one good eye. The towel was soft and smelled of clean cotton, but underneath it he could smell Robin’s sweat and the salt water in her hair. She must have come to use the shower. 

“Are you sure you should be using a blade in your current state?” she asked blandly, lifting the towel for a second to check the cut. “You might slip and cut a vessel, you know. You’d bleed out and no one would know until the morning”

He chuckled in spite of himself, unable to take her dark humour seriously. “That would be an embarrassing death for a swordsman.”

“Yes, it would rather.” She lowered the bunched towel from his face and smiled for the first time. “Well, you won’t be bleeding out from this one, fortunately.”

“Ha. Well, give me time,” he quipped, turning back to the sink and gingerly fishing the blade out between finger and thumb. Deftly he flicked it clear of soap before awkwardly twisting it around in his fingers to try again. Before he could raise the blade, however, a slim-wristed hand closed long slender fingers around his forearm. He grunted and obligingly lowered his hand, looking down at the conjured limb protruding bizarrely from the water-filled sink like a pale sea creature. “Something wrong?”

Her reflection drew closer and he felt her warmth against his bare shoulder. “I’m not sure you should be doing that in your current state.”

Offended, he met her eyes in the mirror. “I’m fine.” As he spoke, the fresh cut on his cheek burned insistently. 

“I want to help,” she said simply, and this caught him off-guard. If she had said something about him needing assistance, or even trying to convince him there was no shame in it, he would have merely doubled down in his stubbornness and continued, cuts and all. 

But she _wanted_ to help. It made him feel like he was indulging her – and the thought sent a strange thrill through his abdomen, although he wasn’t sure why. 

“Chopper would approve,” she added placatingly, and after another pause he semi-reluctantly passed her the blade and collapsed onto a nearby stool. 

She smiled at him, eyes twinkling, and dropped to a kneeling position. “Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”

He opened his mouth to ask – and then closed it again as she leant in, framing his chin in one soft warm hand. There was a silence punctuated only by the gurgle of the water pipes as Nico Robin tilted his whole head to one side, exposing his neck and the pulsing jugular. She began gently running the blade across his cheek, careful to avoid the raw area he’d exposed before, and pausing only to reach up to the sink to wet the knife once more. 

Her touch was deft and gentle, directing his head with a sure grip but never aggressive, always with the gentlest of pressure that he readily followed without really thinking. As she reached the underside of his chin she carefully tilted his head back until his entire throat was bared to her. He felt her trace the knife-edge down, heard it scrape against the coarse growth of hair. Robin worked intently and with great purpose and he was sure it was just her powerful concentration on the task that made her forget herself, so that she didn’t notice the way she leaned in between his legs, the contact of her hips against his nearly bare thigh, just covered with the folds of his towel. Or the way her hand involuntarily trailed down his collarbone, against his chest when she withdrew to the sink once more. 

“I’m surprised you don’t do this with a sword,” she commented, gently pushing him to look up and slightly right as she followed the angle of his jaw. 

He wasn’t sure if she was joking. “I think it would offend them.”

“I suppose so. Right a bit more.” He did as he was told, but it was discomfiting to be turning his blind eye towards her, although he suddenly realised there were few people he’d trust more to be running a sharpened tool along his throat. 

As she continued up his left cheek he felt her move her hand to cup the back of his head, supporting it in the uncomfortable angle. His earrings tickled and shifted against her hand. 

One last sweep of the knife and Robin announced he was done – but she didn’t drop her hand from his head. He turned to face her properly and for a strange moment they stared at one another. He could feel everything acutely – her hand still nestled at the base of his neck, the rise and fall of her breathing mere inches from his own chest, and overlaying it all was the fresh, smarting coolness of his freshly-shaven face. 

For a second he thought she was going to kiss him, but then she stood up, her trailing hand ghosting across his shoulder. Nonchalantly she rinsed the shaving blade and her hands in the sink and dried them on her now blood-spotted towel. “I hope that was satisfactory?”

He ran his hand over his face. “Best shave I’ve ever had,” he said, and meant it. 

Somewhat curiously he watched her disappear into the shower cubicles without another word, and again rubbed his cheek, feeling the skin smooth and supple under his touch. She had stripped away all the roughness, the coarse grittiness, leaving him clean and bare. Somewhere deep within him his heart pounded just a little bit more fiercely. Perhaps he was annoyed that she’d seen him vulnerable and in need of help, and it wasn’t just his face she’d stripped down and left exposed and pliable.

But as he thought of Nico Robin, her proximity and the way she’d felt between his legs he knew that the feelings she’d left him pondering were not wholly soft and tender.


End file.
